Bear call on GE, wads of drug(maker) cash, Netflix price hike

By Shawn Langlois

The chubby postman from Seinfeld says Tuesday has no feel. Friday has a feel. So do Monday and Sunday. But if Newman paid more attention to the 2014 stock market, he’d know Tuesday feels like a day to be long.

No other day’s performance compares so far this year. Tuesdays, and Tuesdays alone, have been consistently positive, according to Bespoke. If you invested only in Tuesdays in 2014, you’d be up 8.7%. For every other day? You’d be in the red.

What’s more, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to get in the way of this market as it rides into today’s action on a five-session win streak. Something the S&P 500
/quotes/zigman/3870025/realtimeSPX hasn’t accomplished since October. The safe bet seems to be that there’s more to come. And, note, that’s not just because it’s Tuesday.

There’s also good results from a hobbled glamour stock that may help lure investors back to the discarded group. In keeping with the regular flow of things, another batch of data will probably point to a healing economy. And, until Putin delivers one, the lack of a catalyst to unload should keep things bubbling north.

The quote of the day: “Three weeks ago we said EPS season would calm people down on some of the hyper-growth stocks, particularly in technology. We now think we were full of baloney.” — From a note led by Morgan Stanley’s Adam Parker.

The economy: The FHFA house price index for February showed prices edged up 0.6% for the month, or n Existing-home sales for March follows an hour later, along with the Richmond Fed survey of manufacturing activity for April.

With Mulally on the way out, the question is whether the much smarmier Mark Fields can take the wheel effectively. He’s definitely a Ford
/quotes/zigman/264304/delayed/quotes/nls/fF success story and seems to have the backing of the workers. Mulally will be a tough act to follow, of course. And it looks like investors have at least some doubts. The stock dipped lower when the first reports hit, and it’s sagging again this morning.

The chart of the day:Tim West rolls out a rainbow of colors to make his bearish case for GE
/quotes/zigman/227468/delayed/quotes/nls/geGE on the Trading View website. He says he sees the stock dropping toward $24.50 a share. “The raw facts about GE’s revenues and after-tax profit margins reveals a flat underlying performance for the company, and I would look for flat stock performance for the next year or more,” he wrote.

“There are very few things in life which are as dependable as war. Even throughout periods of general peace, there’s still war, at least somewhere on the globe, and classically the U.S. is part of it, either indirectly or directly,” Sterling wrote. “Niche defense stocks give investors a unique way to profit from it.”

The wretched hive of scum and villainy that Paris has become, on display.

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Need to Know (NTK) guides investors to the most important, insightful items required to chart a course ahead of each trading day. Anchored by lead writer Shawn Langlois, NTK will sift through the fire hose of news, commentary and data, from traditional and non-traditional sources, and extract what’s most essential. You can start reading NTK here as it begins publishing at approximately 6:30 a.m. ET, or sign up here to get a version in your email box every morning at approximately 8:45. a.m. ET.